Resources for funerals and dying

Funeral ResourceYou are welcome to download this collection of poems, prayers, Committals, blessings and readings which I use for the funerals I take. I am continually updating this, and I would love to hear from you if you have more good material that I can include.

Saying GoodbyeThis is a hand-out to use with a family gathered around as their loved one is dying. It offers simple, familiar prayers, readings and a few hymns, for a time of holy honouring and letting go.

Children and FuneralsA resource with suggestions and reflections on what children need around deathincluding my husband Chris's experience with having the body of the deceased person 'at home' with open casket prior to the funeral, and how that helps children to grieve well.

Lots more great resources for children and grief on the Skylight website:​https://skylight.org.nz/Children

After the funeral ...Please take time to deal with whatever comes up in the aftermath. Grief is a funny old thing; even when a death is not tragic it’s funny how emotions and tiredness can catch you out. There’s some good material on the NZ Mental Health Foundation website if you want to do some more reading about grieving. https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/a-z/resource/41/grief-and-lossThe ‘Grief after Loss’ brochure is worth downloading - it’s short and simple but good material.

"Well done, good and faithful servant"You have stood where you chose to standYou have spoken the words which were yours to sayYou have opened your heart to friend and strangerYou have shaped with your hands what is good and realYou have laughed to the delight of GodWell done for being youWell done for being there for meWell done.

Here is a life

Here is a life, woven togetherwith darning wool and cobwebscharge cables and number 8 wireheart strings and strands of hair.Here is a life constructedof coloured blocks and bits of flufflost pens and forgotten dreamsthe smell of baking cakethe feel of sand between the toes.Here is a life well lived, as well as anyone can,a heart given away, and given again,skills tested, risks taken,hard work, promises kept, and some broken.Here is a life to rememberin the echo of a sweet songsun's warmth on the skinin the spaces betweenin the knowing of the soulHere is a life.

We shouldn't be here

This is not right, we shouldn't be here.This isn't the plan, it is not fair.It's not your time, you had more to live,more yet to do, much more to give.The loss gapes like fractured stoneThe ending grinds like bone on bone.We who love you come to complainthe wrongness of what is quite plain:You are gone, you have left,suddenly, we are all bereft.We name you loved, we hold you dear.We choose to give thanks that you were here.Reluctantly we let you goreluctantly we let you go.

​

Blessing for a gardener

There is beauty in a bud, opening tender to the sunThere is beauty in the flower, bright colour, perfect formthere is beauty in the falling of petals, tossed in the breezethere is beauty in the seed, new life within the dying of the flowerThe seed must itself fall into the earth, break openand sprout bravely, deeper and higher, a new beginning.May the life of God grow strong within you, as it did in Joy.May you grieve well for her, and care well for each other.Go now in peace. Amen.

www.conversations.net.nzWritten by Silvia Purdie Resources for life and faith